Ducky Tie
Recap Marshall has acquired a new tie with a duck pattern, which Barney despises because he finds the design unstylish. Now that Lily is pregnant, her breasts have gotten bigger, so Barney wants to see them; both Lily and Marshall refuse. The group decide to go to "Shinjitsu", a teppanyaki restaurant __FORCETOC__ dinner, where Barney insults the cooking style, claiming he can do all the techniques the chef can do with ease. Marshall becomes angry and challenges Barney to do every technique, with permission to touch Lily's breasts if he succeeds. If Barney fails, he must wear Marshall's ducky tie for one year. Barney unnerves Marshall and Lily throughout dinner with suggestions that he is as adept at cooking as he claims. When he offers to call off the bet if he is allowed to see Lily's breasts for 30 seconds in the alley, they accept until Marshall realizes that Barney has been conditioning Marshall to associate Barney's sneezing with the desire to go to "Shinjitsu" as part of a future scheme to use Marshall if Barney wanted something from him. Lily and Marshall are confident they have won the bet until after dinner, when Barney easily executes all but one of the cooking techniques. In desperation, Lily flashes Barney, which distracts Barney and prevents him succeeding at the final cooking technique, catching a shrimp in his pocket. When the group returns to MacLaren's, Barney reluctantly begins wearing the ducky tie. Meanwhile, during dinner, Ted relays the story of what happened when he ran into Victoria again at the Architects Ball. Ted makes a long-awaited apology for cheating on her, which Victoria accepts though she is no longer angry. Seeing Robin, she thinks that they are still together, but Ted tells her that they dated for a year but are just friends now, she is surprised to learn that Ted does not find it strange that he, Robin, and Barney hang out every night, despite the fact that both Ted and Barney dated and broke up with Robin. When Ted offers to help Victoria wash the dishes at her bakery, he learns that she is going to be engaged to Klaus, a classmate from Germany, and becomes upset when he learns that she had gotten together with him a day and half after she and Ted broke up. They wind up arguing, but begin reminiscing their time together after Ted reveals he deeply regretted cheating on her and they had loved one another; they end up sharing a kiss. Despite the kiss, Victoria realizes she wants to be with Klaus and leaves to meet him for a trip in the Hamptons. Though he concludes the story there with his friends, Future Ted reveals that he had asked Victoria what she imagined their lives would be like had they stayed together. Victoria had responded that Ted's relationships over the past six years have failed because of Robin, telling him that she is a bigger part of his life than he realizes. She also tells him that the three of them (Ted, Barney and Robin) just hanging out as friends doesn't work. Though Ted had not believed Victoria at the time, Future Ted reveals that she had been right. He just didn't know it at the time. Continuity *The ducky tie is seen again, after being seen in the previous two episodes, and makes another appearance in the next episode. *Ted and Robin get together in Come On, and break up in Showdown *Victoria returns. She dated Ted in the first season. They recall how they met at Stuart and Claudia's wedding ( ), playing Marshgammon during , and saying goodbye as she left for a baking fellowship in Germany ( ) *When Ted asks the gang which girl from his past he ran into, they list the following people who have all made past appearances: **Stella **Zoey **Karen **The girl who beat him up - Natalie ( ) **The girl who ruined a photo with Slash ( ) **The girl who made you get the butterfly tattoo - Amy ( ) *Lily says "You son of a bitch" the same way as in and . *The "bang-bang-a-bangity-bang" song at the Hibachi restaurant was first sung by the group in , and then again in . *The music when Robin recounts what actually happened when Ted ran into Victoria was previously used in . *Barney makes another reference to how low quality clothing makes him feel "ill". He first mentioned this in . *Maury Povich was referenced in a deleted scene shown in the promo. *Barney is not seen wearing the ducky tie during the future scene in The Mermaid Theory which implies that he did not have to wear it for a full year. It remains to be seen whether this is just a continuity error or not. This may be addressed in Gallery :For a listing of all images on the wiki tagged as being from this episode, see Category:The Ducky Tie images. : TheDuckyTiePromo1.jpg Ducky Tie.jpg Ducky Tie 2.jpg ducky tie 3.jpg ducky tie 4.png Ducky Tie 5.png Memorable Quotes Notes and Trivia Goofs and Errors Allusions and Outside References *The gang's descriptions of many of Ted's ex-girlfriends, which usually start with "the girl who..." makes Ted think he dated "a series of Stieg Larsson novels," referring to the Millennium series. *Barney's first joke about the ducky tie is a pun based on the name of the children's game Duck, Duck, Goose. He immediately follows it up with several mentions of hashtags. *Barney sings "let your boobies show" to the melody of the line "Let my people go" from the song Go Down Moses. Music *"Spit on a Stranger" by "Kathryn Williams" Other Notes Guests Reception Todd VanDerWerff of the AV Club rated the episode at A-. The episode had 10.556 million viewers. References External Links *''The Ducky Tie'' press release at CBS Press Express. * *